


Come Home

by The Sign of Tea (NoPlastic)



Series: Tumblr ficlets - Johnlockary [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Christmas, Multi, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPlastic/pseuds/The%20Sign%20of%20Tea
Summary: Even after many years, John and his family can't forget Sherlock Holmes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> (AU in which Sherlock didn't return after Reichenbach)

“What do you want for Christmas, darling?” Mary asked her granddaughter.

“Sherlock!” The little one exclaimed cheerfully. “I want Sherlock to come back for Christmas.”

After all these years, after all the stories John had told about his time with the detective, Sherlock had become something like a legend, especially in the minds of the children.   
When his first daughter had turned three, John had started to entertain her with age-appropriate versions of his adventures with Sherlock. She’d loved them more than any fairy tale, even the one in which Sherlock fell from the roof of St. Bart’s and was never seen again. John had always ended that story with the words, “… and since he was so clever, I’m sure he found a way to stop being dead. He’s still alive, somewhere, and perhaps one day, he will come back.”

Now that his granddaughter was old enough, she got to hear the stories, too.

“Santa can’t make Sherlock come back, sweetie,” he heard Mary saying as he watched the snow fall outside the window. “Now, give me the big star so I can put it on top of the tree.”

“But Grandpa always says he’ll come back,” little Jessica replied. “And you agreed.”

“We said _perhaps_ –“

The rest of the dialogue faded to background noise while John lost himself in memories of the past. He could still remember details of the cases and of living with Sherlock in 221b as if he’d only moved out yesterday.

There had been so many moments in John’s life when he wished Sherlock could be with him – for example when he learned about Mary’s past, and he struggled to make a decision for or against a relationship and marriage with a former assassin who’d lied to him.   
Or when Moriarty came back, and Mycroft had to deal with the problem all on his own and refused to let anyone help.   
Back in those days, John had sometimes thought he’d seen Sherlock – in a crowd, in the shadows, or somewhere down the street. But of course it was just his own mind playing tricks on him.

With Mary, he’d often talked late at night about Sherlock and what would have happened to their relationship if he’d still been there, or if he’d come back.   
As always, Mary surprised him. She suggested they could have lived all three together, that she could have loved them both. She lay awake and weaved romantic tales about life as a triad, from a private wedding ceremony to the question of who drove the kids to school. Mary and Sherlock cooking dinner while John made tea and set the table… small and big moments of a life they could have had. Her stories even became daydreams for John that he dwelled on during dull days at the surgery.

A loud bang startled John and brought him back to reality. The big star had fallen from the tree and shattered on the floor. Jessica, now just a sensitive six-year-old, immediately started to cry.   
John was about to go and help Mary comfort the little girl, but then the doorbell rang.

“I’m going,” he said to Mary and the child, and made his way down the stairs.

He opened the door, took a single look at the man who stood in front of him, and immediately closed it again.

John shook his head, took a few deep breaths, and tried to convince himself that what he’d just seen couldn’t be real.

A man in a dark coat had stood on the doorstep. Graying curly hair, piercing blue eyes with characteristic wrinkles around them, an expression somewhere between regret and amusement.

“Sherlock?” John said to the closed door.   
His voice came out a whisper. He wanted to open the door again, but his hand was shaking. Suddenly he was afraid that there would be nothing to see anymore, that he’d only hallucinated. That there would only be the empty street and not even footsteps in the snow. He wanted to call Mary, the stronger one of the two of them, so she could handle this situation for him. She would know what to do. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say a word.

There was a knock on the door.

“Oh, _for God’s sake,”_ John hissed, grabbed the knob and yanked the door open.

Sherlock was still there. Just like Jessica had wanted, that little girl who didn’t know that you always had to be careful what you wished for.

“Merry Christmas.”

Sherlock held out his hand, and stopped John’s fingers from shaking as he took it.

“Hello, John.”


End file.
